


Wind At Your Back

by Churbooseanon



Series: Guns For Hire [5]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Guns For Hire AU, Mercenaries, Past Child Abuse, Street Racing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2696207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some stories start on Adaptive. Some come to be there. Top wheel-woman 479er starts in a backwater and runs the second her contract expires and her feet hit the ground on Adaptive. Her story is still being written.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They give her a piece of paper that says she’s free to go, cut a three day hotel voucher and promise her travel to any planet the military has a base on. Just like that she goes from ten years as ace pilot Sierra 479, who could get in anywhere, any how, and right back out, and she returns to being Leilani Xiong, girl from a backwater world and a backwater city and a backhand life.

Sierra 479 had a place in the universe, she realizes when she flops down onto the too soft mattress in the too big hotel room that really isn’t much larger than a closet if she’s being honest. Sierra 479er had a purpose. A plan.

Leilani Xiong, she discovers an hour later when she bolts up screaming in a cold sweat, clawing at her hair, has nightmares.

Apparently all those years spent working from before sun up until after sundown had spared her through exhaustion alone.

Apparently she hadn’t run far enough.

* * * * * *

Valhalla.

Leilani did her research during the times she was awake during hyper. The name was derived from some ancient culture back on Old Earth that valued warriors. Half of those who died in combat from those people were apparently guided up to the heavens by these divine warrior women called ‘Valkyries’ and carried to Valhalla. The Hall of the Slain. The place where the valiant dead were gathered to feast and fight away eternity in the name of being fit enough to stand a test against the coming of the end of their world. A massive hall before a golden tree with a roof made of golden shields.

None of that described what the military city in the middle of the Jersal sea actually looked like.  
Actually, Leilani wasn’t entirely sure how she wanted to describe the place once she stepped off of the shuttle and found herself in an air tight environment. That alone was almost driving her crazy. Nearly so much as just how many people around them were wearing helmets. There weren’t many designs, not many color or pattern variations, and everyone seemed to be wearing them all the time.

Hell, her instructions about Valhalla told her she would be meeting an army non-com who would find her and help her finish her paperwork and get her shuttled to one of the mainland continents. Of course finding an army non-com around here was a lot harder than most places because few people were wearing uniforms. Not that she’d expected to find people in them, for all that she was still in her old fatigues—really, they were the only pieces of clothing she even owned anymore—this wasn’t an active military instillation. No, Vahalla, along with Longshore and Citadel, was one of the three military cities of Adaptive, which meant it was peopled almost exclusively by current, former, and reservist members of the UNSC’s various branches. Lifers, prospectives, and old, retired men and women came here from across the galaxy to live their daily lives and be ready at a moment’s notice to join any new interstellar war effort.

Long story short, sure everyone here was military or related to military, but except for the helmets, there was very little that marked them as different from the people she’d seen off base at her last outpost.

“Miss Xiong?”

Lelani turned on her heels and found herself face to face with a man in a strange helmet done in a musty kind of gray and a drab military brown. Ah, this would have to be her non-com then. No one but army wore those colors. Actually, now that she thought about it, a lot of the helmets around here seems to have colors that reflected different branches of the military. Maybe the different shapes or marking styles helped to distinguish rank or specialization here. She’d have to be careful to learn…

No, she realized with a frown, she wouldn’t have to. She was leaving the service. She’d served her time and she had no intention of staying on as a reservist in a military city. She needed to get away. She needed to blend into crowds. She couldn’t do that here. She needed the chaos and bustle of normal people in normal lives to help her drown herself and drown out the pained cries that echoed in the back of her mind.

“That would be me, kid,” she confirmed, shifting her duffel over her shoulder so she could put a fist to her hip. “Why, you see any other person here looking around like they’re totally lost without one of your fancy helmets?”

“I… uh…” the young man, that was what he sounded like through his helmet speakers, mumbles, clearly caught off guard by her statement. “N-no ma’am?”

“Then yes, I’m the one you’re looking for. Lead on.”

Again he seemed for a loss as to what to do with her, and after a moment the tilt of his head said that the best thing he could do was just follow orders as they had been given to him. Which, in this case, seemed to mean thrusting a folder out toward her.

“This way, ma’am. We’ll get you fitted for a helmet and from there I’m to take you to processing in the city proper. “

Just what she needed, bureaucracy. Well, there was nothing to be done for it but to just get to it and move on. So Leilani gestured for the man to lead on, and surprisingly enough he actually did. She adjusted her bag again on her shoulder and shuffled after him.

* * * * * *

They give her a helmet.

It’s achingly familiar. Resembles what she used to wear when she dominated the skies and the vacuum. When she was a wizard fueled by jet engines and turbines. A miracle worker of the air. Queen of the skies.

Apparently it’s standard issue for those members of the UNSC on Adaptive. The blue visor marks her as earning her wings. Black edging means she’s rated for space flight. The pure white of it all means she’s retired. Lacks rank. Lacks purpose. Lacks drive to stay.

She looks at herself in the mirror after she puts it on and they lecture her at length about basic helmet maintenance, how to check one’s seals, and plague cloud safety. Looks at herself in the mirror and for a brief moment see can see Sierra 479 again, composed, capable, strong.

It clashes with her fatigues. She doesn’t point that out, what would it serve?

It does hide her eyes for sight. That alone makes it worthwhile to be trapped in a helmet.

When she goes she promises to listen to the three hour video that her helmet will automatically play while she’s flown to the city she’ll choose at her debrief out at processing.

This should be far enough, right?

This should be far enough.

* * * * * *

Valhalla.

It looked blue.

“It looks blue,” she told her guide, a young Private James Cornwell apparently, and his shoulders shook with amusement.

It was nice that she could keep getting the young man who was uptight with her only an hour ago to laugh so often. People here needed laughter. Living knowing that you could be called up at any moment to fight a war for the survival of humanity had to be stressful.

Was stressful from her memory. Something she’d lived with not to long ago to be honest. And now…

“It looks really blue,” she repeated as she looked around.

“It’s the display settings on your screen,” Private Cornwell laughs, shaking his head. “I’ll show you how to refine your settings to filter it out once we’ve gotten into the processing center, okay? For now… well, just stick close. Really, the screens are normally better calibrated than that.”

Not that she entirely minded. This place looked more like a mythical refuge of warriors when it was cast in blue. Sure, previous research said gold was better, but honestly, there was little about the research that fit this place. She had to imagine that a mead hall for the glorious dead probably didn’t have sidewalks of precise width to allow for four Puma-class all-terrain vehicles to drive abreast and have at least two people stand between each lane of traffic. The buildings probably wouldn’t be utterly uniform, the prefab sort of structures erected at training bases the universe over given larger, and more permanent forms. She was at least relieved, when she heard about the plague clouds, to hear that some traditional military quirks had been abandoned in favor of safety factors. Like double seal filter rooms. Narrow corridors that could be locked down in case of seal-breach. Specialized security systems that made use of helmet tech.

The place was still entirely too regimented, entirely too stiff, and entirely too different from what she wanted out of her civilian life. No matter what they asked of her at processing, she intended to be on the first Pelican out of this place.

Regimented and regulated didn’t hold the nightmares back anymore. Didn’t give her purpose. Instead… instead she needed lights and noise and chaos and the incessant press of bodies that she heard normal society was.

“Sorry that it’s not much of a sight,” Cornwell added after a moment.

“Not much of a sight?” she asked, frowning at him before she realized he wasn’t going to see the expression. Interesting. She was going to have to figure out how to read people all over again, wasn’t she? Oh well, that would make life more fun.

“Right, you’ve never been to one of the cities,” he sighed. “So… you know how computer browsers get ads all over your windows and all that? Sometimes messages that pop up uninvited?”

“Yeah…” Leilani agreed nervously, still frowning as she adjusted her bag again. What did… “Oh god, please tell me they don’t…”

“They do,” he laughed, shaking his head. “Seriously, you’re going to want to run your helmet’s onboard tutorial to learn how to filter or shut off stuff like that. But at the same time it’s sorta great. I’ve been to a mainland city once. Armonia. Anyway, if you look past the ads, well, the apps that civvies run are pretty fun, and the onboard nav programs are awesome for getting around, and sometimes you get coupons and…”

“Sounds like a terrible situation,” she sighed. “Let me guess, you have an attention thing, right?”

“Yes ma’am. ADHD. Part of the reason I actually chose to join up after I hit my majority ma’am,” he chuckled. “Parents are both military. Dad’s a gropo, Mom’s with fleet command. I had the option to go civvie. Regs for all children born in a military city. Most enlist with one service or another, but some go. It’s… okay, so with some religions there is this tradition to go out into the world when you ‘come of age’ to see what the material world is like. And the person either stays out there, lives with everyone else, or they return home after their journey with deeper faith and all that.”

“And that’s what happened to you, Cornwell?” she asked, surprisingly interested in the conversation. And here she’d thought she’d be bored with the rigid structure around here.

“Pretty much. I went out into one of the largest cities. Spent a month partying, seeing the sights, watching the people. And in the end…”

“You came back.”

“I came back,” he agreed, and she could hear the satisfaction in his voice. “I mean, one, even with medication I can’t really handle the sheer amounts of sensory overload, even with the helmet filtering for me. It’s great support, but sometimes it’s not enough. But it occurred to me while I was out there that… well, those people out there? To live their lives, there have to be people like me, willing to give their lives to protect them, you know?”

There was a voice in the back of Leilani’s head that screamed that not everyone deserved to be protected. Some people were worthless pieces of scum that…

She shook that out of her head and just nodded.

“Pretty fucking noble kid,” she observed, trailing him into another large, nondescript building. “That your pitch for me to stay reservist?”

“Not good enough?” he laughed.

“Not remotely. I’ve seen peace keeping action kid. And I need to stop for a while. Been flying since I was eighteen. Now I need to see how those people you want to protect live.”

“Going to find yourself? Maybe you’ll come back.”

She doubted it. She’d spent her full three day hotel voucher back after her contract end calculating the farthest she could get herself travel time wise from a small backwater town and a retired army Sargent as she could manage.

Now she needed to lose herself to the crowds.

She had to keep running.


	2. Chapter 2

They give her a list of options. 

It's just a list of letters and numbers really. Combinations of letters and numbers is apparently how cities work officially on this planet. Something about how the designations tell you everything you need to know about a place. She couldn't even begin to give a fuck. But apparently the decision matters and it's hers and the guy on the other side of the desk stares until she jabs her finger at one of the choices. 

The bureaucrat launches into a probably memorized three page synopsis of the place that is designated C0-R6-S and apparently called chore-us. Great. Sounded like a pain. 

She listens as he describes the difference between living in an underground city as opposed to a surface one, about how much more expensive it is to live in a UC, about how housing is harder to find, about how helmet maintenance is still important because she would most likely have to work on the surface, and on and on and on. 

The helmet they gave her has a record function. She records his lecture, and when he asks if she's sure, she just nods. 

He asks again. 

She crosses her legs and asks where the fuck a girl can get some real civvie clothes before starting into her new life, because hey, her savings was more than enough to get her out of fatigues out of all of these years. 

He sighs and pushes paperwork across the desk at her, and she signs with a flourish. 

What does she care where she goes provided she gets there intact?

* * * * * *

Leilani was aware of three things. 

First was the raised voices echoing through the house. Two people screaming bloody murder at each other, threats flying thick and fast through the air like they always did, hurled with all the same force that there would be behind thrown plates, vases, books, even a knife. 

Second was the painfully tight grip around her arm. There would be bruises in the morning. But at least no one had slapped her yet. Hit her so hard that it all but threw her across the room and made her teeth rattle in her head and left her sprawled and her body aching. That was worse than being roughed up a little. When they hit her like that she always seemed to twist an ankle. Always found herself forced to rush about her chores despite her pain because if she was slow it started all over again. At least it was only bruises. 

Third was that she wasn't eight anymore. Or eleven. Or fifteen. No, something in her mind said she had left this behind long ago. She knew this. It was certain. It was true. It was...

Leilani could barely hear the harsh buzz of her alarm clock over how she came awake screaming her defiance at the weak little girl who had been given no choice but to stay. That wasn't her. It couldn't be her. It would never be her again. 

Her shout died down, replaced by someone pounding on her wall or her floor or her ceiling. Really, she couldn't be bothered to put in the mental focus to figure that out at the moment. Instead she threw back the thin, scratchy fabric that was posing as her blanket, rolled off of her only marginally thicker used mattress, and pushed herself up to her feet to shuffle to the far side of the tiny ass studio apartment she had managed to find in Chorus. 

The water from the tap was icy cold as she splashed it over her face, but it was exactly what she needed. There really was no point in trying to go back to sleep once she'd had a nightmare. The only thing that ever happened was that she would fall into another if she tried. And another. And another after that. The only thing to do was decide that rest was a lost cause and force herself to move. Like she had after the Pelican flight that had dropped her off at one of the entrances to the undercity of Chorus. Which, apparently, had been right in the middle of the city of Armonia, the logistics of Leilani was no more willing to think about now than she had been hours ago. 

Actually, looking at the dim numbers protected onto the outside of the visor of the helmet sitting in the corner—it had taken her the better part of an hour to figure out how to use the helmet as a clock when she wasn't wearing it—it had only been about an hour ago. Wonderful. 

With a sigh she turned off the water, grabbed her hair tie, and quickly pulled as much of her hair up as possible. Not much point to trying to sleep, so she might as well do something productive. Yawning she shuffled over to where she'd carefully folded up her new clothes before she'd stretched out. She hadn't gotten much—apparently she should have actually listened to the guy at the processing office back on Valhalla. It was more than simply expensive to live in an undercity. Her current savings would keep her in her shitty little apartment for months, but not account for much more. She'd splurged and bought some clothes, a simple white sweater covered with blue stars and strange blue jeans that had slashes of white all over them, and even a microwavable dinner, but more was going to have to wait until she got out on the streets and found a job. 

That wouldn't be too bad, right? Going out there and being part of the working people? Getting up in the morning, going in, doing something productive, and coming home at night to her empty apartment and crashing to start all over again? Really, civvie life was more like the military life than people were willing to admit. 

At least... that was what she was hoping for. 

* * * * * *

He gives her an armful of fliers. Two armfuls really, but she's got strong arms and a stronger back and she could probably do pushups with the tiny little man who runs the cafe sitting on her back will full tea service. 

That's not the worst part. No, she wouldn't mind standing outside all day, handing out pieces of paper to idiot people who don't even know what they want and apparently could easily have their little minds changed by a piece of paper thrust into their faces. Really, did the guy expect people who had their own plans and their own lives to come into his little cafe just because Leilani waved a flier in their face? 

No, the worst part is what the attraction of the place is. 

The worst part is that as much as she hates it, the pay is going to be good and the guy likes the idea of someone who is used to standing around for long periods of time. 

The worst part is the outfit he thrusts in her hands. 

The worst part is that she's dressed up, on the street, in a maid outfit with the stupidest piece of shit cat ears perched on her head and a fucking tail pinned to the back of her too short skirt. The worst part is that she has to do this for money.

Every day. 

Stand on the street outside of the 'maid cafe' and try to get people to come inside and enjoy service from girls like her. 

Stand just in sight of the door and look in and see perverted men and women alike 'accidentally' running their hands over stockinged legs. 

They tell her to stand outside and pass out papers. 

They don't tell her about little kids pulling her tail. They don't tell her about teens who come close to trying to flip her skirt and run off the second she glares at them, laughing all the while. They don't tell her about how she's going to get propositioned several times a day, and how hard it is to keep from punching the guy who drops his number down her shirt. 

The worst part is that she can't risk punching the dead man walking who made a grab for her ass in the face. 

The worst part is that she needs this job to make ends meet, so she keeps coming back, day after miserable day.

Strange how she suddenly wishes she was back in basic training.

* * * * * *

“It's not _that_ bad,” one of the indoor girls, who ironically actually went by Kitty outside of work, sighed as Leilani threw her ears into her locker after her shift. “The tips are pretty good at least.”

“You know, I worked with the fucking UNSC all my life,” Leilani countered, unhooking her tail and sending it the way of the ears before grabbing her newest pair of pants—a comfort purchase from her first paycheck to make her feel better about the stupid outfit she had to wear at work—and pulling them on under the skirt. “I've seen a _lot_ of porn hidden under bunks. I've helped run smuggling to get the guys I flew point for their jerking material. Hell, I even once helped sneak someone's girlfriend on base which isn't fucking easy for a surprise birthday party. And I won't even get _started_ about the hazing you go through. But this?”

She worked the dress off and over her head, leaving her standing there shaking her uniform at Kitty in only her jeans and a bra, “ _This_ is degrading!”

“It's a living,” Kitty countered, stripping down herself and carefully packing away her uniform. “One that's helping me keep my daughter in a nice, safe, undercity apartment where she can play in a fake park and not have to worry about her helmet.”

Leilani sighed before she put her own uniform away and pulled on a t-shirt and coat. “Sorry... sometimes I forget about that part.”

“You've never had to live on the surface, Lacey,” Kitty answered, her voice flat and sad. “You don't know what it's like. You didn't grow up here. It's... There aren't many people who grow up without knowing at least one person in their neighborhood who died from a cloud. If this is what it takes to keep my daughter safe, then this is what I'll do.”

“Lacey?” Leilani found herself asking, just to keep the conversation going but not willing to touch on the clearly sensitive subject. 

“It's what the girls in here call you,” Kitty provided. “Cali came up with it. It was originally going to be 'lazy' because... you know, ' _Lei_ lani' and ' _Xi_ ong', but Ally messed it up and called you 'Lacey' instead and it sorta... stuck?”

“Better than what they called me in the service,” she shrugged, leaning down to replace her heels with comfortable boots and tie them on. 

“What was that, fly-girl?”

“C. C. Sugar Top,” Leilani smiled, and watched as Kitty's expression went from confused to insanely amused. 

“Seriously? Why would they do that? Did you punch them?”

“I didn't _punch_ the guy who did it so much as hand flight over to my copilot when he was doing at test jump from my ship... I may have kicked him off the back when he was set to jump,” Leilani laughed at the memory, enjoying how he had screamed before righting himself and performing the exercise without any further black marks. He had gone to their CO later to report Leilani, only to be told that no soldier should ever disrespect their pilot, people who fly into hell and back to get their asses out of tight spots. 

It had been perfect.

“Anyway, long story _super_ short, one of the guys had a care package from home. Cupcakes. Whole squad got some. They were bringing me and my co a pair, asshole tripped, cupcakes went flying and...”

“Oh god no,” Kitty laughed, clearly following the story to it's logical conclusion. “Oh tell me they didn't.”

“Yep. Front and center,” Leilani chuckled with her. “Cupcake tits.”

The laughter was something good. Something... right. Like a wall of ice had finally broken between Leilani and her coworkers, all but telling a story about poorly timed cupcakes. 

“Damn, Lacey, you have _got_ to tell us more stories,” Kitty smiled. “Have a good night, okay?”

“You too Kitty. And tell that girl of yours that cupcakes only ever go in the mouth.”

A new round of laughter followed Leilani... followed _Lacey_ , as she headed out through the back down. Maybe there were perks to this new job after all. 

Though not that she didn't need a stiff drink tonight anyway. Time to finally try out that bar she'd seen up the road.


	3. Chapter 3

They give her whiskey on the rocks and grief. 

The first she orders, and has once every week when she went into the bar she had found on the way back from work. It doesn't taste quite right, and when she asks to see the bottle she has to roll her eyes because it's probably the shittiest brand she's ever seen. Not, of course, that she cared much. It was about the drinking itself.

The second they give her for free. They give her for coming into the bar on a day off in a t-shirt and taking off her coat. It's the tattoo on her shoulder that does it. The UNSC logo, her pilot wings underlining it. She gets weird looks, but the hardest part is the vitriol. 

They hate the military here, and she almost understands it. From what she's learned from surfing the planetary net there is a history of problems here. War not only between continents, but between the city-states, with armies pulled from the citizens preparing to fight wars that didn't make any sense. Wars for resources they could probably trade for. But she doesn't even understand it, but then again, she isn't from here. 

Still, just because they have problems on the surface doesn't mean she needs to get glares and grumbles for being a 'military bitch.' 

But really? She was getting used to the way the world worked here.

* * * * * *

“Pilot?”

Lacey looked up from her drink at the word, and wanted to kick herself for the old habit. It wasn't like anyone here actually wanted to talk to her. Mostly they just grumbled behind her back, sharing stories about 'military brats' who came into the cities and lived it up for a week or so before heading back to one of the island bases. People who just came into their lives, took all the good women, started fights, and then went back like nothing had even fucking happened. And sometimes the women followed them. Or the young men and women who wanted to join the military, but they were sent off planet. The UNSC was apparently pretty big on not running the risk of having the military on planet look anything remotely like biased toward one city-state or another. 

“Hey, Pilot, I'm talking to you.”

It was the hand on her arm that did it, and really, anyone that called her that should have known better than to grab her. Sure, she was a glorified bus driver some days, but that didn't mean she didn't have basic training. Lacey was off of her seat in a second, twisting out of the grip on her arm, grabbing the man's arm and twisting it up behind his back. 

“Shit,” he cursed, going down on his knees as Lacey reached for the gun that wasn't at her side because the next step in this move was pressing it to the back of the guy's head. The way he tensed seem to say he knew it as well. 

Interesting. 

“Damn, Pilot, take a breath,” the man said, and Lacey could see the way he was tensed in her grip. He was older than she'd expected. While his voice had been clear and strong, the man himself was clearly pushing fifty and...

There was the bottom of a tattoo peeking out from under his sleeve. 

Oh.

Lacey relaxed her grip on the man and took a step back, but sure enough when she saw him stand, saw him move, she could see what she hadn't been able to before. The economy of movement. The strength to his limbs. The confidence as he stood up. 

“Gropo,” she observed dryly. 

“Gropo,” he confirmed as he turned to face her, crossing his arms over his chest. “They teach all the pilots in your division to do that?”

“Only when in hostile territory.”

He smirked at that, nodded in a way that said he not only got it, but was tired of it. That, Lacey decided, was something she could put up with. So when he gestured for her to join him at a table in the corner.

Any other situation and she would have kicked the old ground-pounder in the ass and sent him on his way. But the hostile air of the bar made it today, made it this situation, and all she could do was nod, grab her whiskey, and follow him to the table. She contemplated it for a moment, looked at him with the choice spot with his back to the wall, and shrugged before pulling the chair across from him out. If he was going to treat her military, she was going to act like she always had in the service. Which included flopping down in her chair, putting her feet up on the table, and toying with the glass between her fingers. 

“What you after, old timer?” she let herself drawl, trying to get back into the rhythm of 'do not fuck with me, I am your pilot and I am god' that she used to have with army and marine assholes back in the service. 

“Straight to the point, I like that,” he chuckled, shaking his head as he sipped from a bottle of what Niner knew was cheap as fuck beer. “I've got a proposition for...”  
  
“I'm not into guys,” Lacey cut him off. “Especially not old guys. Especially not old guys who lived the jarhead life.”

That drew a chuckle from the man, who nodded. “None of you head in the sky types ever do. But that's not what I'm hear about. Heard word pass around than a flyboy had moved underground. Didn't think it was possible for one of your kind to live without the sky in sight.”

It killed her every morning to get outside of her apartment building, look up, and see only stone and steel. No sun. No sky. No stars. 

“Being a pilot is about being adaptable,” Lacey explained, even though the words tasted like ash in her mouth. “Not like there's much to see up on the surface.”  
  
The man shrugged in response. “Anyway, my proposition is different. I don't want your body at all, except for how it should be used.”  
  
“And just what does that mean?”

He smiled, his eyes glinting with mischief in a way that Lacey had always found to be thick with promise. 

“It means I need the unique combination of skill and insanity that only UNSC pilot seem to have in the proper measures. Tell me, Pilot. You know how to ride a motorcycle?”

* * * * * *

He gives her some bullshit line about how you never really forget how to ride a bike. 

Thing is, Leilani knows something that he doesn't: she's never been on one before.

That doesn't mean they don't put her through her paces. Every night after work she meets him at the bar, they have a quick drink, and he takes her back to the garage that he runs. Apparently cars aren't as common above ground, people preferring trains between cities and trains in cities, and the occasional flights when they're rich and content in that fact. But in the undercities, well, vehicles are common enough. A lot of ground to cover, horizontal and vertical, and more than that, there's no need to cloud proof the vehicles in the same way. So he runs a garage, and in the back is the shittiest, most beat up old junker of a motorcycle that Lacey has ever seen. 

It's beautiful. 

They spend an hour every night with him teaching her all the parts and how they fit together. She spends her nights in her apartment reading maintenance manuals that he thrusts into her arms. When she sleeps she dreams of diagrams and what it would feel like to roar down the streets, wind in her hair, the power and freedom of the bike under her. 

He tells her his name is Marsters, and she tells him that she couldn't give any less of a fuck. The only name she's interested in is the one she's going to give to the beat up old baby he's given her, that he's letting her work on in the back of his garage, that he's helping her rebuild so that the little love can be competitive. 

She asks what he means by competitive. 

He promises that he'll tell her when the bike is ready. 

She names it Pelly, and when it runs she paints each piece carefully and buffs it to a high gloss and she spends three hours deliberately painting the name on the side of her angel. 

And when she sleeps at night, all she dreams of is diagrams and pieces and oil stains on her hands and under her nails. 

* * * * * *

“You sure you don't want it?” 

Lacey looked up at Marsters,  _again_ , and gave him her best 'what the fuck did I just say' look, which she had been told in the past was more than just good. It was something that used to shut up nosy military pricks in the past, but it never seemed to work on the old man. 

“As much as I hate the cafe, they pay better than you could,” Lacey found herself admitting. “I need the money. This... this is  _damn_ good fun. I love getting my hands dirty, and I sleep well on the nights I stop by to work on Pelly, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm trying to buy things. You know, clothing. Furniture.  _Food_ . You don't get enough business here to support the both of us.”

“I do, but that's not really your argument, now is it?”

No, it wasn't, and they both had long since known that. 

“You still haven't told me why,” she answered instead, knowing it wasn't quite what he wanted, but it was a close as she was going to give him to what he needed. “Why I'm here. Why you're giving me Pelly. Why you're teaching me all this.”

The way he smiled at her as he leaned against a standing tool kit said that he was finally going to talk. 

“You've seen the sign outside, on the shop, right?” 

Lacey nodded, shifting to sit more comfortably, her back to her bike. “Yeah. Been meaning to tell you that the thing looks a bit lopsided. You've got too much white space between 'Marsters' and 'mechanics.'”

“Used to be Marsters and Mitchell,” he admitted, voice low and sad. “I had a partner when I got here. Pilot by the call-sign Tango 314. Mitchell was...” 

She watched as he trailed off, his face contorting into that 'painful memory' expression that most careers got when Lacey ha known them in the service. The sort of expression that said the speaker had lost a good friend. 

“Mitchell was a mechanical whiz too. Helped me set this place up when we retired. But pilots... no, you pilots don't settle down the way other people do. Too much of the sky in your blood. Too much of a need to be free.”

Lacey smiled softly at that, she knew it far too much. Knew how she felt like she was being chained down, and she couldn't even explain how. 

“There are parts of Chorus, in the edges of the higher levels, where there's street racing.”

Lacey perked up at that, looked back to her bike. “You...”

He holds his hand up to stop her. 

“He got into street racing, and he was good. Said it was the only thing that kept him going. This bike... was his. There was a bad accident while he was racing, and... Well, long story short, he couldn't keep going.”

“Sounds like a damn good reason not to encourage someone to race,” Lacey sighed, shaking her head. “So why...”

“Because I watched you in the bar. More than a few times. Because you looked as worn and weary as he did when we first came here. And... I spent two years watching him fade away before he started racing,” Marsters admits. “Can't bear to watch it happen to another good person. So I'm going to teach you to ride. And do you know what you're going to do?”  
  
Lacey shook her head. 

“You're gonna  _win_ .”


	4. Chapter 4

They give her a name.

She listens to it fall from their lips, always looks to the source. 

Her name is Leilani. She looks it up once, stealing time on a friend's computer. 'Royal child' is what it means. She wonders just what it was that made them name her that. To have such high praise for a daughter they raise their voices to. 

Her friend gives her a doll. It's a pretty little thing. A pretty doll with a pretty face and soft hair. She names it Leilani, her little royal child, her heavenly lei—not that she knows what a lei is. 

He finds it in her dresser. 

She finds it in pieces in the trash. 

It's better this way, she thinks to herself as she cradles the pieces of the doll to her chest and she cries. Now it looks more like her than the blond hair and blue eyes and perfect body ever did. Now it's broken too. When she hears his footsteps she quickly stuffs it back into the trash and climbs up onto her footstool and goes back to washing the dishes. He can't know, can never know she found it. 

When he demands to know why she's crying she says she burned her hand on the hot water. 

He doesn't care. Grabs a bottle from the fridge and goes to sit on the couch like he does every night. 

Why, she wonders, did they bother naming her when all they ever call her is 'girl'?

* * * * * *

Maybe it was her nerves about the race. Maybe it was the slightly questionable fish she ate last night. Or maybe it was just that her mind was everywhere and anywhere these days. Either way she couldn't stop thinking about the nightmare. 

The _memory._

A little girl crying by a gray plastic trash can, cradling a toy doll to her chest, thinking she looked like it. An idiot girl, Lacey decides, shaking her head to get rid of the memory. That wasn't what she needed right at this moment. What she needed was to be here in the moment, like she always was before a mission. Let her body be one with her baby, and close her eyes to feel the way Pelly weighed and shifted below her and...

“What the fuck is that piece of shit?”

Lacey looked up from where her eyes had been on the helmet between her legs, and found herself surrounded by a few other racers. They had to be racers, she decided, looking at the mass of rightly fitting pants, tight but padded coats, and carefully cultivated looks of 'I just woke up and didn't care what my hair looked like this morning.' Or maybe not so cultivated, because really, who could even tell these days. 

The one thing they all had in common was that they were looking at her, and that they looked far from impressed. 

“Seriously, did you just haul that out of a trash heap and think it would cut it here?” another voice, one at her shoulder and definitely female, laughed. 

“You know it takes more than a bike to manage in something like this,” a third asked, this one a large man that Lacey was pretty sure was probably too big to be remotely aerodynamic. 

“And yet my Pelly is going to take you all,” Lacey smiled to herself, putting on every last drop of her favorite, sarcastic 'like I give a fuck about your teeny tiny little world problems because I've got an enemy dropship on my six and I could really stand for you to shut the fuck up' tone. One or two flinched away at that, but the first one to speak, the one standing directly in front of her bike, seemed mostly amused. 

“Well would you look at this,” the man, maybe about Lacey's height but with a bright red coat and a terribly clashing purple muscle-shirt said, crossing his arms over his chest. The colors he wore matched the hideous street bike a few spots over with the name 'Monster' painted on it's side, so she had to assume they belonged together. “Rookie's got a mouth on her.”

That made Lacey chuckle and shake her head. “I haven't been a rookie since you had fashion sense. Ooooh, wait, that was never. Damn.”

There was a muffled chuckle from behind her, and Lacey just folded her arms across the top of her helmet. She forced them to stay still, to not let the leather of her new white and blue jacket slide over the... whatever material the helmet was made of. Enough years in the military taught you that the proper reaction to being surrounded by a bunch of surly idiots was to at like you outnumbered them and that it was funny. Tended to throw them for a loop.

“You think you're so great but...”

“Really, compared to you, Burke, this lady looks like a fucking _ace_.”

To be honest, Lacey wasn't a stranger to watching crowds mysteriously part for a single figure. It happened all the time in the military when a superior officer was coming down on them like the fury of any god you wanted in the flesh. But she hadn't seen anything like that in civvies. So far as she had known it was something reserved for movies and the military. And yet, at the sound of a female voice it was like the whole group around her was snapping to attention and moving away from behind her. 

The woman—was she even that—that strode up from behind Lacey wasn't what she'd honestly expected. She wasn't exactly small, but she didn't tower over the other present either. Nor did it seem like her clothes were designed to look intimidating. Instead the blond woman with the icy blue eyes was dressed a lot like Lacey: tight leather pants that still looked flexible, a light but form-fitting black tube top embellished with a huge heart, and a purple leather half-coat that looked like it wouldn't even consider buttoning over her chest but managed to match perfectly the faint purple tips in her hair. 

“What the fuck have I told you about harassing the fresh meat, Burke?” the woman, girl, Lacey couldn't even begin to tell which it was, demanded, and it was nice to see how mister purple and red flinched back. 

“Dakota, uh...” the man started say and instantly Lacey's eyes were back on the blonde. Marsters had told her about this one. She'd apparently been dominating the races for about a year now, and was the one to beat. 

And apparently a total bitch if what people said was right. 

“He bothering you, _Ace_?” Dakota asked, frowning as she looked at Lacey. 

“Well... I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'bother',” Lacey returned immediately. She could smell the power struggle on this whole thing and she didn't like being in the way. 

“Just don't like the idea that any old bitch with a...”

“Pink,” Dakota snapped, holding her hand out to Burke, who flinched away from her. 

“What!?” Burke asked, horrified and there was a new flavor to the silence around them that made Lacey smile, though she couldn't begin to explain why.

“If I've told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't judge a racer that you've never faced,” Dakota answered, voice low and dangerous. “If you're that ready to judge her just by her bike, then you're more than confident enough to race for slips.”

“I didn't... I...”

Dakota turned her attention to Lacey. “Ace, you willing?”

Honestly, she didn't know what was going on, but the wicked amusement in the woman's eyes didn't allow for a no, so Lacey nodded. 

“Good,” Dakota grinned. “Whichever of you two finishes better gets the other's bike.”

All Lacey could do was stare at Dakota in horror as the rest of the group walked away, the conversation apparently over. 

“Wait, what?” Lacey demanded. “Now listen here, I spent...”

“I don't care,” Dakota answered coldly. “You've already agreed, in front of witnesses.”

“This is my only...”

“Well then, Ace, I suggest you win.”

* * * * * *

They give her a number. 

Really they give her a number three times. One to clip to the front of Pelly and another two on pieces of elastic to wear over her chest and back. It's far from comfortable, but she understands why. It lets people bet easier, lets them watch the race better. Honestly, the whole thing is set up far better than she had expected considering street racing was illegal. 

Marsters had told her that it was a small group of off-duty CPD officers who ran these things, so it sort of made sense, but really, she hadn't expected it to be so organized. 

That didn't matter, though, once they had her on the line. Then all she has is her mind on Pelly and the track. 

They give her lights.

Red. 

Yellow. 

Hit the gas, squeeze the break. 

Green. 

_Go._

They give her the open road and wind in her hair. They give her the roar of engines and the cheers that they drown out. They give her a shiny metal horse under her and a whoop of joy from her lungs as she falls behind, skirts to the outside, cuts a corner sharper than half the other riders and picks up seconds. 

She's the air. She is the power. She is motion like she used to be. No one stands between her and her mission. No level of insanity too impossible. 

There's no thought, only instinct. See a turn, process, lean to the side and she's around passing another two bikes. The world is grays and browns blurring past her as she slowly picks up ground. Nothing is going to stand between her and the end, she decides. She isn't Leilani. Isn't Lacey. Is close to Sierra 479. 

She's _Ace_ as she cuts another corner tight and then swerves quickly, darting between two closely placed competitors and she swears she can feel the the brush of someone else's coat against her arm as she squeezes by. 

She is speed itself, her wings back as she nears the finish. Two bodies left in front of her. One in a pale purple coat. The other purple and red. 

_Beat him._

They have the acceleration advantage on her, but Marsters did good work. Taught her well. She's got the upper limit on speed on them, and she's agile and she has balls. Big brass ones. Stole them from a Marine who thought he was all that and she wasn't going to lose now. Not to him. 

They come even and she sees him look toward her. She edges out in front of him. 

She doesn't see the foot. She feels it there briefly, pushing hard against her bike, and then she's veering off and there's a concrete wall and all she can do is bail to the side and roll. Roll over and over and over and everything hurts when she comes to a stop. 

Just like that, her freedom, her power, everything gone again. 

* * * * * *

“Can you hear me, Pilot?”

She didn't even know she'd gone unconscious, but from the aches all over her body she can understand why. Still, Lacey pushed herself up and tore her helmet off, screaming her rage at the skies. 

“That son of a bitch!” 

“Don't,” Marsters answered, his hand coming out to rest lightly on her shoulder. “You could be...”

“Fuck that,” she snapped, pushing to her feet. Her ankle was a bit sore, she could feel the friction burns on her skin under her coat and pants. Could feel the hole ripped in the back of her pants. None of that mattered as she limped over to the concrete barrier and... 

“Pelly,” she whispered sadly, falling to her knees before the mangled wreckage of her motorcycle. The poor thing hadn't even been in this bad of shape before Marsters had given Pelly to her. And now... 

“It's over,” she observed weakly, and she can feel herself dying a little inside. Can feel those moments of hope and joy melting away into nothingness. 

“Really, Ace, this is how you're going to act?”

Lacey didn't even look up at Dakota's voice. “Fuck off, bitch.”

“Don't you remember the bet?”

That. Fuck. She wouldn't even be able to repair her girl even if she wanted to. Lacey clenched her fists at her sides and tried to fight back her tears as she turned to face Dakota. She wanted to yell, to scream, to rage. Third place would have been enough. There was still enough of the cut of the betting for her to make something. Third place would have been amazing. And yet Dakota had set her up, put the asshole Burke into a position where he couldn't afford to lose, and now she wouldn't even get to keep the pieces of her beautiful baby. 

Except... 

“You look like you've seen a ghost,” Dakota observed, and Lacey just stared at the woman and the taller man with the same icy blue eyes and short blond hair and amazing cheekbones who was holding up a hideous red and purple street bike with the name 'Monster' stenciled onto it.

“What the _actual_ fuck!?” Lacey demanded. 

The tall man chuckled and shook his head. “I can see why my sister likes you, with a mouth like that.” 

“Sister?”

Dakota shrugged and pointed past them, past Pelly, down the road and...

Back toward the finish line. 

Back. 

_Back._

“Exactly,” Dakota answered as Lacey felt her eyes going wide. “Trust me, that son of a bitch won't be riding again. There are rules, even here. Probably won't even be talking any time soon thanks to my jolly giant brother. Anyway, you beat him, and everyone saw the bet. So this thing...” She gestured toward Burke's bike as her brother wheeled it forward, “would be yours now.”

“I...”

With that Dakota put down the kick stand on her own bike, a beautiful machine in poison green, and strode forward, pulling something out of her back pocket. A manila envelope.

When she threw it Lacey caught the thing, and she was wowed by how many bills were there when she opened it. 

She was more shocked when she looked up and the angry blonde woman was right there, fists in Lacey's collar, practically smashing their lips together. All Lacey could do was stand there, shocked and lost until the other woman pulled away, grinning wickedly. 

“I better see you back here soon, Ace.”

“Soon,” Lacey promised, fingers coming up to her lips as she grinned and noticed Dakota's brother roll his eyes. “And when I do, I'm going to beat you too.”

“Now there's a woman after my own heart,” Dakota laughed, shaking her head. “You're welcome to try.”


	5. Chapter 5

They tell her she's a waste of time. A waste of energy. A waste of air. A bed. Food. Clothes. Life. 

She wonders if the other kids talk to her parents because they seem to agree with them often enough. 

Leilani stops trying to make friends when she's ten. Sure, other kids aren't as bad as her parents, but she's learned that you don't stay in one place very often. 

Her mother packs up all her things when she's eight. It fits into a pair of duffel bags. They leave and go somewhere new and Leilani knows no one. Her mother knows no one. She isn't allowed to tell anyone they're going or where. Not that anyone would care to ask. Her friend that gave her the doll stopped talking to her after she found out Leilani broke the gift. 

She didn't break the gift. 

He's back there by the time she's ten so really, she doesn't know what the point is. He comes back in a uniform with his hair super short and all the angry still in her voice so she doesn't know what the point was at all. He's angrier. He drinks more.

She learns not to keep anything valuable in the house. There's an old tree a block up and two over. She wraps her special things in pieces of old shirts, puts them in a lunch box, and buries them among the roots. 

They move suddenly when she's eleven. 

She never gets a chance to retrieve the lunch box. 

Leilani doesn't cry. 

She ran out of tears years ago.

* * * * * *

The woman who had started to go by the title Ace months ago woke with a groan. Immediately she, formerly known as Pilot, formerly known as Lacey, formerly known as Sierra 479, and always known as Leilani Xiong, pushed herself back from the desk in the back room and yawned as she got to her feet. Her fingers worked a hair tie loose from around her wrist and in a quick motion most of her hair was up and back out of her face. 

Really, she had to learn to stop falling asleep while she was doing the books. 

“Marsters!” she called as she headed from the back room, taking the book she had been working in with her. “You asshole, you let me fall asleep!”

The haggard old mechanic rolled himself out from the underside of a heavy truck, and slowly pulled himself up to a sitting position, his arms wrapped around his knees. She knew the look he was wearing. Of course knowing someone for half a year tended to make you familiar with them. 

“Didn't  _know_ you were asleep, so I don't think  _let_ is the right word,” he snapped right back, but it was friendly, just like hers. “What you bitching about now, Ace?”

She sighed, coming to a stop and flipping the ledger open. “You're gonna be in the red this month.”

“Fucking hell,” he grumbled, taking the book from her with his greasy hands. “Can you get under there and check the coolant line? I need to look over this.”

“Nothing a fat purse can't fix,” Ace answered, waiting for Marsters to get to his feet and then she plopped herself down on to the board and pulled herself under the truck. 

Turned out, she learned rather quickly, that taking care of cars was a lot simpler than taking care of bikes or Pelicans. Yeah, people gave her weird looks for saying that, but cars had more space for vital parts than bikes, and less additional systems that if you accidentally looked at wrong blew up in your face like Pelicans did. She loved working on them. Hell, she didn't mind that she did this work for Marsters for free. It was part of their exchange. He helped her keep her small group of bikes and trio of four-wheeled vehicles in racing shape for severely reduced prices, she provided a free helping hand around the shop for him. He was getting on in years, she was good at the work, and the fact that he sold the extra pink-slip wins for her all worked out. 

Except this was the second month that he'd been running in the red, and Ace was beginning to think it was her fault. Surely he hadn't been running this close to the line before she had been around. 

Not that he'd ever tell her for certain.

“You forgot to carry the one,” he called from a set of cabinets. 

“Silly me!” Ace called back, glaring up at the undercarriage above her and letting her fists clench for a moment. 

She couldn't keep doing this to him. Yeah, her racing had let her give up her work at the damn maid cafe—not that she didn't still talk to Kitty and some of the others—but... 

She owed Marsters a whole hell of a lot more than him barely scrapping enough together to make ends meet. 

No. She had to do something, and soon. Yeah, maybe she wasn't getting enough sleep between working here, keeping her babies running, and the races themselves, but there had to be something she could do. 

And Ace was pretty sure she knew what it was, even if she didn't like the prospect. 

* * * * * *

They call it the Marathon. 

It's not a street race, not exactly, and it's not the sort of thing that Ace has made her name in. And make no mistake, she has made a name. A damn good one for herself. Within a month she was using the rechristened Sierra to take all comes. 

Most comers. Sometimes Dakota pulled it out at the end, and Lacey hadn't begrudged her that. It was Dakota who had protected her that first time. Dakota that had put her in a bad situation. Dakota and her brother that had pulled her out of it. Lacey knew she owed Dakota. 

Ace knew she had to take the other racer down to be worth anything. 

The last time she sees Dakota the woman takes off their helmets, kisses her so deep that Ace can see her twin moving menacingly out of the corner of her eye, and says that if she's ever in Gulch, well look her up. 

She watches Dakota go and neither of them point out that she doesn't know the other woman's real name. After that she wins. There isn't competition. Not on bikes. Not in cars. Nothing. Ace is a legend, and she's the one that people whisper about. 

And she sees the woman in black watching her from the edges of the crowd. Notices her a lot. 

Isn't surprising when the woman comes to her after a long jeep race and hands her a flier. 

They call it Marathon. It's a three day endurance race from the wastes outside of Armonia to those of Gulch. For most people not driving constantly it's a long way. People take trains that sort of distance. But the purse is insane, the bragging rights are legendary, and it happens once every five years. 

Marsters says don't do it. Tears up the flier. Says only those who are crazy or who have a death wish do the Marathon. 

The pot is huge. 

Ace always wanted to be a living legend.

She takes first, and sets a new record to boot.

But truly, the thing that gets her?

Three days under the limitless wonder of the open sky.

* * * * * *

_“You dumb bitch.”_

Ace sighed and with a few quick finger motions—she had long since gotten used to the strange methods of controlling helmet subsystems—turned the volume down on her helmet.

“What's it matter?” she responded to Marsters, trying to ignore the annoyance and fear on his face. “I won, didn't I?”

_“Yes, you won a race that most natives aren't crazy enough to race. You spent your first day since you landed on this rock on the surface. In full exposure to plague cloud dangers, with no support, no filtent, a poorly sealed vehicle, and... Dammit you didn't even take a copilot.”_

“And I  _won_ ,” Ace repeated firmly. “I'm a big girl, Marsters. And I'm sending a full three quarters of the winnings to you. You're to use it to pack up my apartment and send it on ahead to me. I'll be a bit but I'll get either some help or rent more cargo space on a train to move my girls out here.”

_“Dammit, Leilani, don't you get how dangerous living on the surfa...”_

“Hold on,” she cut him off, fingers flicking into a mute command as she watched a woman peel out of the milling, cheering, celebrating mass of race fans. The way she moved screamed danger. Ace knew that sort of movement. 

_Sierra 479_ knew that movement. This was a fighter. A warrior. A trained killer. 

“You're good,” the person, woman if Ace had to make a guess, greeted. She had the strangest helmet design, painted an even odder blue-green, and her clothing stuck out like more of a sore thumb than even Ace's clothes, and Ace had hers custom made. Her biggest indulgence, but she loved how she looked in white, blue and black. This woman, though, decked out in blues, gold and brown was something else entirely. She was beautiful, graceful, and every bit of her movement screamed she was carrying enough concealed firepower to take out the whole crowd. 

“I know,” Ace responded crisply. “What do you want, merc?”

The woman froze for a moment, before shaking her head, her shoulder quivering with restrained amusement if Ace was any judge. 

“You're a  _lot_ better than I'd thought. But she  _did_ say you would be.”

“She?” 

“The woman that put you on to the race,” the stranger answered, making a small gesture that Ace read as a request to inspect her jeep. Ace just nodded a brief agreement. “I don't exactly know her, but I've heard of her, and a lot in our line of work travels by word of mouth. She heard I needed a wheelman for my next job, the best. She saw you, and mentioned you.”

“Funny, she never mentioned you to me, miss...”

“You can call me Raleigh,” the woman responded, a smile in her voice and Ace was certain that wasn't her real name. Then again from what she'd heard, mercs rarely did. “But there are some who are coming to call me Number One.”

“Wow, sounds fucking arrogant.”

“Says the driver known as Ace.”

“Guilty,” Ace shrugged, amused by that point. “Alright then, Raleigh, what the fuck do you want from me?”

“Like I said. I need a wheelman. The best.”

“I'm not a wheelman.”

That drove a true burst of laughter from the woman, and she shook her helmeted head. “No, I guess you aren't. But if you do this for me, I'll pay triple the winner's purse here. Not bad for a single afternoon of work, right?”

“Nine thousand?” Ace gasped in shock. 

“You're right, that seems wrong,” Raleigh answered. “Make it twelve. You in?”

It was better,  _way_ better than her other option of bumming around looking for a new apartment and staring up at the sky. Beside, it called to her, and she knew it would. It was almost like someone was offering her her Pelican back. 

“I'm in.”

The helmet hides everything, but Ace was certain that Raleigh was beaming at her. “Well then, how about you and I find a nice quiet bar to negotiate details at.”

“So long as you're buying, kid.”

“I wouldn't dream of anything else.”


	6. Chapter 6

They call for recruits.

She sees the posters all around school. The military always needs more people. 

All of her life she's grown up outside of one of her planet's three military cities. It makes sense. Even when they ran they didn't get far. Maybe she'd been afraid. 

Leilani doesn't want to be afraid. Hasn't wanted to be afraid all of her life. 

She's seen the recruiters. They aren't as cruel as him. They aren't as hopeless as her mother. They look strong. Confident. Free. 

She asks them where they're from. 

One man says Veritas. A woman claims to hail from Manticore. Each one she asks says somewhere different. 

She asks if they've seen their family recently. They seem sad when they admit they haven't.

She signs up before the end of the day.

He seems proud of her decision, but really, she doesn't want him to be. She wants to be free. She wants to run and put more distance between them than there is in the universe and she wants to be free. They seem to be promising her all of space to run, and she intends to take it.

* * * * * *

All around her was warmth. It would have been perfect if the warmth hadn't been restraining her. Restraining her while her body shook, covered with a cold sweat. 

“Breathe,” a gentle voice whispered in her ear. 

Right. Raleigh. Hers would be the arms around her. Hers would be the lips pressed against the back of her neck. Her body pressed firmly to Ace's back, her hand curled against Ace's stomach, her fingers brushing lightly over the UNSC tattoos that really belonged to Sierra 479 and Leilani more than Ace. She should get that covered with something else. 

They had gone to the bar. Ace could remember that. Could remember the drinks and talking about the race, and touching each other lightly. At some point Raleigh had taken off her helmet and the piercing beauty of her too-green eyes and the shock of her crimson hair, and the softness of her lips... 

She'd been tired. Three days and she had barely slept and the way Raleigh had smiled at her had been beautiful. When Ace had almost fallen asleep over her beer Raleigh had chuckled and gotten her a hotel room.

Apparently Ace hadn't let her go. And now she had to deal with this woman holding her as she woke up from a nightmare. 

And here she had thought she wouldn't have to deal with the nightmares when her body was so drained. 

“Let go,” Ace responded, voice light but firm. 

The arms were immediately gone from around her and Ace breathed better to be able to roll of the bed and get to her feet. Of course then there was the fact that she was naked, but she immediately started to dress. See, easily fixed. 

“How long?”

Ace looked back at the naked woman on the hotel bed, and frowned. “How long what?”

“The nightmares. Before or after your service?”

She stared at the woman as Raleigh sat up, dragging the sheets up with her to cover herself. “People don't think to ask you that, do they?”

“Never,” Ace admitted. “They assume...”

Raleigh twisted away from Ace, pushed her loose hair aside, and showed off a UNSC tattoo on the back of her neck. “They assume a lot of things.”

“You...?”

“Joined up immediately out of high school,” Raleigh provided. “Hell jumper training.”

“Damn,” Ace whistled in appreciation. Hell jumpers were probably the craziest of all people, and Ace had always loved working with them. Nothing like people willing to put on pounds of body armor and weaponry and jump planetside from high atmo. “Not shocked someone as crazy as you ended up mercing.”

“It's a living,” Raleigh shrugged. “But all my years, it was never what I did with the military that gave me nightmares. It was what drove me there.”

“Abused?” Ace guessed, shuffling to a chair in the room and plopping down into it. 

“Not exactly,” Raleigh admitted. “My... It's complicated. Starts with a mother who was a marine, a father who emotionally checked out when she died, and needing to feel like I was doing something. But in a way, yeah.”

“Does... it get easier?”

Raleigh smiled softly. “When you start to become the person you  _want_ to be, rather than what you were made to be. So... relax, okay? You'll get there.”

With that Raleigh looked away into the distance, and Ace couldn't help but think she heard an unspoken 'I hope'. 

* * * * * *

They both know the steps to planning an extraction. 

Honestly, once Ace agrees that she really is going to help, it's a relief to know Raleigh was a hell jumper. They know how to do things, how to get the job done, and how to be willing to take acceptable risks to get the job done. 

The job, in this case, was a train heist. Told that Ace had laughed her ass off, because yes, Raleigh was going to need the best for that. The plan required Raleigh to be delivered to the train from a moving vehicle, secure a cargo car where her objective would be stowed, and then jump with the supplies and herself on to a moving vehicle. 

Ace can't keep herself from asking what the objective is. Justifies it by pointing out that she has to know what she's taking to make sure her baby can handle it. 

She's heard about the tension between warring city-states. She's been told about the fact that instead of open hostilities there are frequently mercenaries sent out to deal blows against rival cities, or to right sabotage. Raleigh, as it turns out, has been hired to reacquire a shipment of important anti-cancer medications that another merc crew had stolen and was shipping to Zanzibar. There were, undoubtedly, lives on the line. She couldn't say how many, but Ace liked the thought of that. 

Doing crazy shit.

Saving lives.

Sounds like her kind of party. 

They spend hours bringing up maps of routes in their helmets, discussing ambush points, outlining strategies. 

They don't talk about how they both know the best laid plans only survive until your first encounter with the enemy.

* * * * * *

The best laid plans  _especially_ don't hold up beyond the point when people start shooting if you thought there were no guards in the cargo car itself. 

_“Things are getting a bit... noisy in here,”_ Raleigh's voice came over the radio and Ace allowed herself the chance to curse as she heard shooting over the radio. 

“Yeah, that doesn't sound noisy so much as... you know... shooty.”

_“I'll keep that in mind,”_ Raleigh laughed. 

“You should also keep in mind that my baby is special to me and if you get a bullet hole in her then...”

_“Incoming!”_

Shit. Shit shit shit. 

The downside to running with a hell jumper was the fact that they were completely comfortable when it came to insane improv. 

This improv, Ace noted with a groan, involved Raleigh appearing on the roof of a train car, a large case strapped to her back, what looked like a metal stick in her hand. Within moments there were more people up there with her, and Raleigh was lashing out with blow after blow and Ace just had to groan. 

_“Get in position.”_

“Position to what!?”

Raleigh knocked another person back, turned toward where Ace was trailing in the jeep and it processed. 

“You crazy bitch!” 

The mercenary is a blue on blue particle in the air. She seemed to hand there for a moment as a shot rang out. Ace can hear the cry of pain in her ear from the speakers, and she can hear it through her helmet and over the noise of the train. The noise of Raleigh falling into the back of her jeep is all Ace could hear, and that of the men on the top of the train car. 

They had still more guns. 

Well, she could at least handle that. 

Ace slammed on the breaks while spinning the wheel wildly. Her baby performed admirably, pulling a crazy and tight turn, and pointed away from the train, her foot happily introduced the pedal to the metal of the foot well, tearing off into the desert. 

“Fuck,” Raleigh groaned as they drove, and Ace spared a moment to look back over her shoulder and look at the merc. There was a growing red spot in her shoulder. “That... hurt.”

“Fuck is right,” Ace practically shouted. “You're going to get blood all over my girl.”

“Glad to know you care,” Raleigh chuckled lightly.

“Your client works with a hospital, right?” Ace asked.

“Yeah. So?”

“When we get back to the city, you point me at which one. They at least owe you a patch for your shoulder, if not your coat.”

The way Raleigh laughed as she climbed over the roll bar and into the passenger seat was reassuring. 

“You're sorta calm for all of this.”

Ace shrugged, smirking in her helmet. “Like I said, I've flown for idiots before. Now, let's just hope on of those plague clouds doesn't run through and that they don't throw the whole train in reverse to catch us.”

“Well... stranger things have happened.”

The genuine concern in Raleigh's tone just made Ace groan.

What had she gotten herself into?

“Wanna go again?”

Ace laughed, because that was a far more sane reaction than shouting  _yes_ .


	7. Chapter 7

They give her a call sign: Sierra 479.

Apparently all pilots in the UNSC are assigned a call sign dependent on the combination of which branch of the military they are deployed to support, the specific location they are deployed, and probably a hundred other factors that loosely translate to 'random as fuck'. Still, they give her a call sign, and just like that, Leilani is gone.

She _is_ Sierra 479. Or pilot. 

There's another pilot, Sierra 482, who shakes his head when they get back from his first flight running eval on her. He flies copilot and watches her, ready to take up the load if she can't handle the real pressures. 

He gives her something more important than a role, an identity, a moment of freedom. 

Stop letting them walk all over you, he tells her. 

It's her job to fly for these guys, she points out. 

Flying jarheads back and forth doesn't mean you have to be their doormat. Being a UNSC pilot is like being the captain of a wooden ship back in the days of wet navies. Provided she gets the mission done, she does what the idiots on the ground or on the radio tell her to do, she's the queen of her god damn bird. Gropos being noisy? Tell them to shut the fuck up. Marines singing too loud before a drop? Kindly inform them that you have a bet that you can barrel roll your bird twice in quick succession and you want to try it, so hold on tight. 

She, he insists, is their motherfucking god from the second they take the first step on the ramp. Do her job well, joke with the idiots, and they'll give her the respect she deserves. Save their lives once or twice and they will love her. Pull them out of the fire enough and they will get down on their knees to offer her sexual favors just to sway luck in their favor in getting out alive. 

They give her a call sign. 

He gives her the right to stop being the little girl cowering in the kitchen. 

Sierra 479 isn't sure which she's more thankful for. 

* * * * * *

“Hey.”

Raleigh's voice shook Ace out of her light sleep, and she smiled at the woman in the hospital bed as she sat up straighter. 

“You're fucking crazy,” Ace informed her, more annoyance in her voice than pity.

“Surprisingly, I  _have_ been told that before,” Raleigh answered, sounding bored. “I'm good to go?”

“Doc said the damage is as repaired as it's going to be without bed rest and all that bullshit. You're not even going to remotely listen to orders of bed rest are you?”

Raleigh had already pushed herself up to sitting and swing her legs down over the edge of the hospital bed. “Hell no. That isn't how I work.”

“I actually understand,” Ace admitted with a sigh, getting to her feet. “Not that I'm stupid enough to get my dumb ass shot like you.”

“I tend to try and avoid that on a job,” Raleigh laughed, shaking her head. “You sticking around long enough for me to pay you?”

Ace pulled a duffel from under the chair she was sleeping in. “Guy who operated on you was apparently also your, what was the term he used?”

“Johnson,” Raleigh immediately provided. “Typical cover all name for clients in this business. People who connect mercs to Johnsons are called Fixers. But this was a direct contract, so my Johnson was going to pay.”

“Well, he did,” Ace provided, unzipping her bag enough to display a wad of cash. “Just pulled my fee from the bigger bag in with your personal effects. Just... wanted to stick around to tell you I did and let you know that we're even.”

“What are you going to do next?”

It wasn't a question that Ace found asked of her often, and she actually paused in pulling on her coat to think about it. What was she going to do next? She'd come here, cut herself off from Marsters, and the only thing she'd thought about since her arrival had been winning that race, wanting to move, and then the job Raleigh had offered her. Was  _was_ she going to do now? 

“Figured I'd wing it. That's what I'm best at.”

Raleigh chuckled in response. “Does anyone ever tell UNSC pilots that their puns really aren't that great?”

“Not if they want to come back from a mission in one piece,” Ace grinned back, getting her coat the rest of the way on and grabbing up her duffel and helmet.

“Ah yes, good old fashioned superstitions as to the super powers of a pilot.”

“Superstition?” Ace demanded. “Bullshit. We pilots are...”

“Gods, yeah, I've heard it a hundred times over,” Raleigh assured her. “Hell jumper, remember? Well, either way, you're ground side now, Ace, and the rules are different down here.”

Far more differences to them than she thought Raleigh could even begin to know. Things were slower, calmer, more... mundane in the worst ways. 

“I'll figure it out,” Ace shrugged, heading for the door. “I'm a fucking living legend of underground racing now. I don't see any reason why I can't go back to being that. Or maybe doing something like you do.”

“Mercing isn't the life for everyone,” Raleigh warned. “What skills do you have?”

“You know what my skills are,” Ace sighed, pausing to turn back and look at Raleigh. “Do you fucking doubt them, princess? Because if I was any slower, any less insanely talented, and any less honest I would be leaving with the full payment on my own.”

“One problem with that claim, Ace...” 

“And that is?”

“It isn't your style,” Raleigh answered, like she knew every fucking thing that ever had been and ever would be and fuck her because she so did not. “Maybe that's what you've decided you are. Maybe that's what your racing or your time in the UNSC made you, or maybe you get it from whatever gives you those nightmares. But honestly? You're a good person. Maybe too much snark in your blood, but there's a person there, under the surface, that is more than she lets people define her as. Someone waiting to come out and take whatever world she wants by storm.”

“I've already taken the world by storm, Raleigh,” Ace countered, turning back toward the door. “Made a fucking name for myself.”

“Did you make it for yourself... or was it given to you?”

Ace didn't respond. 

Not for the first time she found she lacked one entirely.

* * * * * *

They give her a plethora of names. 

Leilani Xiong, Royal Child for the girl who never seemed to have any value. 

Horrible friend by a little girl who thinks she broke the doll. 

Stupid bitch from a boy in high school who gets offended when she doesn't want to kiss his freckled face. 

Piece of shit from the same boy when she punches him for not getting the point. 

They give her hundreds of names. She wears each name, each title, in its own time. She's been that scared child, always comes back to it. She knows she's a horrible friend when she abandons Marsters to move to Gulch. She feels like a stupid bitch when she sits waiting for her first bike race and Dakota has talked her into racing for pink slips. She is a piece of shit as she looks at the ruins of Pelly and doesn't even get to keep her. 

They give her a plethora of names. 

Fresh meat on her first day of basic, but they're all fresh meat. 

Fly girl her first day in the Pelican simulator.

Sierra 479 when she qualifies. 

Queen and Master when she puts her first marine in his god damn place licking her boots to keep her from tearing his life apart for punching a dent into the wall of her lady. 

Coward when she doesn't renew her contract and gets given her papers, becoming Leilani again. 

The more she thinks about what Raleigh said, the more it cuts her. Where in that whole list is the identity that was truly hers? Where was the name she wore because she chose it? Fresh meat she had to take or be even more miserable. Fly boy or girl got stuck on any potential pilot until they were worthy of being called by their name. She thinks Sierra 479 fits the best. Back then she had someone to be, something to do. But Queen was nice. Master was better. It gave her power even when she wasn't at the controls. It gave her respect. Coward... had taken it all away.

Ma'am by a cheerful young boy who probably never really gave himself a chance to truly understand what he was throwing away to protect complete strangers. 

Lacey is what she gets from a cafe full of women in maid costumes with cat ears and tails. For a while she thinks that's what she's going to settle on. 

Pilot. 

Ace.

The pity in Raleigh's eyes... calls her lost. 

She's not sure who she is anymore.

* * * * * *

Twelve thousand dollars went a long way after the three she'd already picked up from the Marathon. Street racing, it turned out, was less of a thing in Gulch than it had been in Chorus, and while she missed it, there was nothing in the world that could make her go back underground. Not once she'd seen the sky. 

Twelve thousand was more than enough to buy partnership in a small garage and storage space out back for her vehicles. The work she did was more than enough in the six months she worked there to earn her the respect of her partner. And then his confidence when he retired and turned the place over to her. She kept his name over the door, not knowing what to use for it. 

Lacey found that it was quiet to work with vehicles. While they were rarer in a surface city, that also meant it was more important to have a few good mechanics who could fix anything. From the mercs who needed their personal vehicles upkept to fleets of cars belonging to corporate interests, to just the aficionado, she always had work. 

So really, Lacey wasn't surprised when she had to haul herself out of being elbow deep in an engine at the polite clearing of a throat. Nor was she really shocked when the man she saw had on some pretty nice clothes but a nondescript helmet. People like him were a dime a dozen, and she had a lot of dimes. 

“Yeah?”

“Are you the woman referred to as The Ace?”

Lacey froze, a dirty cloth between her hands as she started to clean her arms. She hadn't heard that name since the last time she'd spoken to Marsters. It sure as fuck wasn't supposed to be falling from the lips of a man like this. 

“Who's asking?” she finally asked, resuming cleaning her arms of grease and oil. 

“You could call me... a fan of your work.”

Something told her he didn't mean the Marathon. 

“And?” she prompted, frowning as she finished her cleaning and set the cloth aside so she could cross her arms over her dirty and stained overalls. 

“And I know someone who is  _particularly_ interested in someone with your unique skill set. You see, I'm what you'd call...”

“A fixer, I know,” Lacey answered, leaning against a table and tilting her head as she looked at the man. “Give me a reason to care.”

“I believe I can do just that,” he returned almost immediately, amusement clear in his voice. 

Ooooh, that had to mean a  _lot_ of money. And probably a damn good adrenaline rush.

“Alright, come back into my office and we can talk.”

“As you desire, Ace.”

That paused her halfway into her turn toward her office door. 

Ace.

_Did you make it for yourself... or was it given to you?_

_There's a person there, under the surface, that is more than she lets people define her as._

Why the hell did Raleigh have to be right, even after all this time? 

She turned back to the man and shook her head. “It's not Ace.”

“What is it then?”

She'd need a name to work under. Her limited time with Raleigh had made that much clear. A merc didn't use their own name. They used some other thing to define themselves. 

Here it finally was. A chance to define herself. 

A chance she had to take. 

“479. My name is 479. But you can call me Niner.”

Yeah.

That would do nicely.


End file.
